[geeks] a cell phone that doesn't suck

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Nov 24, 2007, at 11:25 PM, Lionel Peterson wrote:

>> There are a lot more references out there; this is just the first one
>> I hit.
>
> The number of people that would have to be involved in creating such  
> a feature
> into a telephone (programmers, testers, engineers, designers, etc.  
> for all the
> phone manufacturers) is huge, and that they all were able to keep it  
> a secret
> for any length of time would be amazing if it were true.

First of all, that's not an uncommon event: people being involved in  
things without fully understanding them.

But more importantly, nothing I'm talking about requires that it be  
kept secret.  The vast majority of people out there are largely  
ignorant of the technology they use and what its capabilities are.

The carriers and the cell phone companies to keep a lot of the phone  
technology secret, but there are also a lot of sites which have  
"outlaw" documentation on them.

When I had a Nokia 6185, I had all kinds of hacks for it.  Some  
boosted performance, and one particularly neat one turned it into a  
little scanner which, among other things, could sniff out cellular and  
WiFi signals.

According to most cell phone hackers, nearly all Nokia phones can be  
remotely updated and controlled, depending on the software installed.   
They make good stuff, but their phones have been used in several cell  
phone attacks.  Of course, some of that is the cell network's fault  
I'm sure.

A phone that allows remote updates and related features could easily  
be updated with software that does anything the phone is capable of.

Look at the cell phone attack in Greece awhile back.  It went  
undetected until it was too late, large parts of it were done  
remotely, and very few people who built the system were fully aware  
that an attack that bad were possible.

Naturally the carrier could do something like this with far less  
trouble, since they don't need to hide it from anyone but their  
customers, either on their own or under the direction of someone else.

Of the people with phones that have these kinds of features, I  
seriously doubt more than a tiny few are even aware of when updates  
occur.


-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com